Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket & Gamora Review

I should just learn the lesson that a theme week invokes bad luck. You’re perfectly healthy, things are going well, you had a good birthday, you think “let’s do a theme week”. Next thing you know, you’re sick as a dog, shivering under covers in-between trips to the bathroom. I love Theme Weeks, but Theme Weeks… yeah, they don’t love me.

To speed things up a bit, I’m going to pair off the remaining reviews and that mean’s we’ve got Rocket & Gamora today. I don’t really have a good reason for pairing these two up other than that they’re more or less the two weakest figures in the set. As I’ll go over, they’re not terrible, but the figures for the guys in this wave just came out far better than either these of two. However, it could be said that these are still light years ahead of where Hasbro/Marvel was just a couple years ago and that would also be true.

Again, this review will be largely spoiler-free. I will say that both of these characters were well represented in the movie. Enough so that they’re easy characters to enjoy following and enough to get me to buy these MLs even though I’m also likely to pick up the Hot Toys (don’t tell my wife!).

Of the group, Gamora seemed a little flatter for the others, but I think that was largely due to her just not needing as much growth as the others. Star-Lord, Drax, & Rocket all had things to come to grips with. Gamora had undergone a change, but it was largely off-screen before the film started – which was totally awesome. It made sure her motivations were pure and not directly tied into meeting Star-Lord. I liked her a lot in the film and I’m hopeful GOTG2 will give her more room to shine.

Rocket was made to be loved. That’s probably been true since he was created by Bill Mantlo & Keith Giffen back in 1976. His movie portrayal was fantastic – Bradley Cooper didn’t just lend his voice, he delivered Rocket as a character and nailed it. He’s the guy that says what you’re thinking, the way you want to say it. The movie actually made me love Rocket more than I already did.

In terms of sculpt, these two are on par with the rest of the wave. Hasbro has improved in just about every area since they first started making Marvel Legends seven years ago and that is still reflected here. We’ve got two 100% original sculpts and the attention to detail on both is phenomenal. I could probably spot one or two little differences from the film characters if I looked, but from the ribbing on Rocket’s jumpsuit or the tassels on Gamora’s pants, a lot of the detail has been carried over giving both figures a great look.

One area on the sculpt where I wasn’t as impressed is the two head sculpts. They’re both good, but I don’t know that either conveys their character. On Gamora, I simply don’t think it looks a lot like Zoe Saldana. There are some angles where you can catch a glimpse of her – it may just be that the facial expression is so placid. The figure’s not angry, happy, determined; she’s just zoned out. I think a little something here would’ve helped the figure.

Rocket is kinda the same thing. On the technical side of things, it works. It’s a great raccoon head. I think I could probably pop it on a Schliech raccoon and no one would notice – but that doesn’t make it Rocket. This is another head sculpt that needed something, a snarl, gritted teeth, just a little change to make it more unique to the character. The comic version was spot on, so it’s a shame to not see that here. Continue to Page 2…

Rocket and Gamora by far are the worst as far as being unable to capture the character in the head sculpt. Star Lord kind of gets away with it since he has the masked head. Drax and Groot are almost dead on.

Rocket needs to be expressive, he spends the whole damn movie being expressive! He doesn’t have the dead eyes of Gamora but he just looks like an unnassuming Raccoon and that’s no fun!

Great review, with all the Hot Toys hoopla I kind of forgot about these guys.

Fantastic review. It dawned on me while reading through it that the ENTIRE line is made up of “docile” faces. I found myself storing away Movie Rocket in favor of the actually vastly superior ML Rocket based solely on personality in the figure itself. Drax has the most expressive face in the line, but Rocket needed that far more. That revelation really just knocked the whole line down a peg for me. That said, the figures are still fantastic and would look good even next to the Star Wars Black series, even if that line is filled with “docile” faces, too. I hope Hasbro addresses the mold limitations of their recent female figures given the articulation restrictions they’ve all had as far back as the revamped female mold used in the SDCC Thunderbolts line.

I heard Drax was being built on a larger stock body (people are assuming the Hyperion body), Starlord was going to be a reuse of the SDCC mold (which is 90% the AIM soldier), Gamora will be in her classic (unikini. Ugh) outfit, Rocket will be a reuse of the BAF. I’ve not heard anything about Groot, but if he’s built on the AIM/Starlord body, that would make two figures in the same box set that use mostly the same (fairly unique) tooling.

Gamora first:
I do agree with you the face looks kinda bored, but it also looks puffy to me, like she has pancake make-up on? I’m not sure else how to describe it? It’s less noticeable in the film, but it is there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did use a 3d scanner for the initial sculpts. The sword can be tucked into her belt, with the side blade(?) holding it up…as long as she doesn’t fall over or other gravitational effects happen. I can’t get her to hold it for squat, otherwise.

that red-tinged hair still bugs me, tho. I get they changed it so people wouldn’t go “Hey, it’s She-Hulk!”
and you know what I think it’s really that the hair sits too far back. what do you think?

–

Rocket:
Okay, he’s slightly taller and leaner than the comic BAF from last year, but I can’t turn his head for anything. I’m surprised to see you got yours to turn that much in pics. Nice to have, but face it: He’s as much a pack-in as Howard was to the original ML Surfer. great sculpt, but it doesn’t balance the limited artic.
Pack-in cannon bigger than him? check. limited artic? check. biggest BAF piece? I AM GROOT.
Is his head as easy to pop as most recent MLs? tempted to put BAF Rocket’s head on there…?

–

random musings:
I *SO* wanted a Nebula, Rhomann Dey/Movie Nova (Darth Sidious joke ensues!), and Ronan in this line. or at least a classic comic Gamora and Nebula. I know the latter is available in MU form with the Infinity Gauntlet set, but….she’s not going to work with ML. Did we really need *another* IM? NO.

I also think this Gamora body could have been used for DoFP Blink (or Kitty?). new head and deco and bam: CLARICE! heck, that “blade” could almost be her teleport spikes!
(btw, have you heard the growing brouhaha over the TRU Jubilee wave this week? YIKES.)

Great that you got a comparison shot of both Rockets, but…no animal Lanterns? 🙁
Rocket would surely have a few choice words about them! 😉
speaking of, what if they had given us Cosmo instead of that cannon? hmmm……
also, no Oreo jokes? nary a one in the house? is it just the cupcakes with you two?

TRU was sending out emails to pre-orderers that there are “insufficient quantities of stock” and “orders may be cancelled”, now BBTS is also saying they oversold and are only getting ~50% of their order, so there will be allocations.

check out the “Marvel Legends Collectors” FB page. there were numerous posts about it from various complainers.
also, someone posted a 20% off TRU purchase e-coupon there.

That Nova is fantastic and Hasbro even talked up how well he in particular was selling at SDCC. They done right with him and our armchair hindsight can’t tackle it.

Iron Man, I’ll give ya. He probably sells fine, but he’s a cheap repaint. The only thing that would make Nova better is being that good and in the classic “groovy” 70s costume – but I’d still want this one too.

I’ve heard that Hasbro is claiming Nova is selling spectacularly, but unless they produce some real numbers, I’m calling BS. Not because I don’t think he’s selling well, but because I don’t think Hasbro has any way to track sales of individual figures. Stores order by the caseload, and don’t track their inventory on a figure-by-figure basis. This is evident if you ever find a figure on a store’s website and go to that location looking for that figure. Ask any employee to help you find that one figure you’re looking for, and they’ll tell you that their inventory is just saying they have quantity of the line that figure is from. They don’t have two Black Widows, for example, like their website says, they have two units of the Cap Legends line, and in all likelihood they’re both WW2 Cap.

From all evidence, the entire Guardians line was under-ordered/produced, so the entire line is selling out pretty much everywhere. Since Nova was only produced in the same ratios as Rocket, Gamora, and Drax, it can’t really be said that he’s any hotter than they are. Anecdotal evidence is clear that Star Lord and Iron Man are not selling out as fast as the others, but they were produced in double the amounts.

So, unless Hasbro can produce data to back up their claim that Nova is somehow a hotter seller than the rest of his line-mates, I’m not buying it. I’m also not buying the Nova figure, because I can’t find it at retail, just like Rocket and Drax.

I’m not disparaging you when I say this, but I’m so glad I don’t see conspiracy theories or have instant skepticism ingrained in my collecting habits. I’m happier for it.

As for their “claims”, if I recall they based on online retailers where the figures are sold individually. That said, the company I work for uses SKUs for general tracking, but is still capable of tracking using the barcodes, which are still individual.

I don’t see asking for any kind of data to back up what, on the surface, sounds like a rather dubious claim (really? Nova’s one of the best-selling ML of all time? Really?) as paranoia or overly skeptical. Skeptical, sure, because the claim being made sounds a bit far-fetched (really? Nova? Not Spider-Man, not Captain America or Iron Man, not Hulk or Thor or Wolverine? Hasbro’s going to try to tell me Nova’s their top guy, when he doesn’t seem to be selling any better or worse than the rest of his under-produced line?).

Well got mine today. Hid a Rocjet two weeks ago and found in that spot today. Had a $5 off and a 10% off coupon and got for under $14. Still no Nova sightings :(. Have to figure how to pose him with te gun but still with no below waist articulation still a fun fig. The Groot piece can work as is untill get more pieces.